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Happy New Year!

Whew! It’s been a few weeks since I’ve done a blog post.. That last week of school before break was crazy, and Christmas break FLEW by! To get back into the swing of writing, I thought I’d share my 2013 with you.  Saw this on Jenna’s blog over at Speech Room News and thought it was fun, so here goes!


What did you do in 2013 that you’d never done before?
Got a puppy! We rescued her from the pound at 4 months. She’s a black lab/border collie mix! (we think)


Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
My New Years’ resolution last year was to make more trips back home to visit friends/family, since I only went back two weekends in all of 2012, and I’m less than 4 hours away. I did keep it, and made 4 trips back, but two of them were only quick 24-30 hours in town trips. I’m going to keep working on it!

Did you visit anywhere exciting?
Unfortunately not last year.. but we did Hawaii the year before and will probably take another trip this summer!

What would you like to have in 2014 that you lacked in 2013?
More girls nights out! 🙂

What date from 2013 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Hmm.. Maybe May 25 because that was the day we got our puppy, and I was SO excited! The excitement wore off for about 6 weeks while we dealt with dominance issues and I felt like my dog hated me (haha), but after a lot of training and patience (LOTS of patience!), we finally made it through most of those issues!

What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Paying off my student loans!!

What was your biggest failure?
Hmm… not learning to sew like I swore I would over the summer!!

Did you suffer illness or injury?
Surprisingly, no injuries! Yeah!!

What was the best thing you bought?
A new car! A 2011 Ford Escape.. Check it out!

It replaced my husband’s old 1994 Jeep Grand Cherokee with 220,000 miles on it.. The A/C had been broken for many years, the rearview mirror was superglued on, you had to bang on the dash for the radio to come on (but even then it was still a tossup), the back doors wouldn’t shut in the winter when it got really cold (unless you knew the trick), it rattled really loudly… the list goes on & on! We were happy to finally get rid of that thing!

Where did most of your money go in 2013?
Student loan payments.. but we got it done!

What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Being nominated for an EduBlog award for “Best New Blog!” I was SO honored/thrilled/humbled that anyone would think my blog was worthy of this nomination, amongst so many other great new bloggers.

What song will always remind you of 2013?
Probably “Blurred Lines” and “Thrift Shop”

What do you wish you’d done more of?
1. Crafting!! I have SO many fun things pinned on Pinterest.. so many that often times, when I go to pin something, Pinterest gives me that “Psst! You’ve already pinned this before” message.. *hangs head in shame* … If only I did ¼ of the crafts I have pinned…

2. More road trips back home. I seem to typically just go back when there’s a special occasion going on, which is perfect for seeing family (i.e. graduations, weddings), but then it can get really tricky to fit in time to see my girlfriends from home. My goal this year is to do more trips “just because” so I can do more of that. I have an amazing group of girlfriends from high school that are just incredible ladies… And even if I only see them 1-2x a year, we always pick up right where we left off!

My all-time favorite picture of us!

What do you wish you’d done less of?
Procrastinating 😉

How did you spend Christmas?
Assembling these cute reindeer donuts 😉

I spent Christmas at my in-laws’ house for the first time.. They just moved to the area in the Spring, so we did Thanksgiving with my family and Christmas with my husband’s parents!

One of my favorite gifts? These crocheted Jayhawk hats that my husband’s grandma made for all the grandkids. One word: Awesome.

My husband spent Christmas morning going on a scavenger hunt to find his gift! I got him a Nexus 7 tablet and some stocking stuffers, but I didn’t want him to suspect a Nexus when there was only one gift under the tree.. so I wrapped empty boxes and put empty gift bags under the tree with soup cans, etc… in them to weigh them down… ha! When we got to my in-laws’, I scattered them around the house.  Each box/bag had a clue taped to it/in it as to where he could find the next gift!

What was your favorite TV program?
So many! The Voice, Big Bang Theory, New Girl, Criminal Minds, How I Met Your Mother, Sons of Anarchy…

What was the best book you read?
I’m ashamed to say I didn’t read a whole lot of books last year! But, I did read:
1. “The Journal of Best Practices: A Memoir of Marriage, Asperger Syndrome, and One Man’s Quest to Be a Better Husband” It’s about a guy with Asperger’s who is married to an SLP. It was interesting, funny, and a really quick read!

2. …and 50 Shades of Grey. Don’t judge me.

3. I tried reading Gone, Girl but only got 5 chapters in before I had to return it to the library.. and I hadn’t really gotten into it during those 5 chapters. Am I the only one?! I heard SO many great things about it so I was disappointed I didn’t get into it!

What was your greatest musical discovery?
“Hey Pretty Girl” by Kip Moore… My husband often times starts out his texts to me with “Hey pretty girl” (I know, I’m a lucky girl! :))  so I fell in love with the song immediately.

What did you want and get?
I thought about starting a blog for a while.. then I finally took the plunge! I also got some help with my caseload this year.. we hired another SLP and she took two pre-k classes from me. She has been great and I am so happy we have her!

What did you want and not get?
A winning lottery ticket 😉

What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 27 in December and celebrated my birthday for about a week straight! My coworkers spoiled me at work, with food, gifts, and sweet card!

They know my chevron obsession all too well!
Not pictured: a mini potluck lunch!


It was FREEZING that night, so my husband picked up some of my favorite food after work and surprised me with it at home—it was perfect because I didn’t really want to leave the apartment again! We ate that and watched The Santa Clause– our first Christmas movie of the season!

A couple days later, I did the Ugly Sweater 5k in the morning (it was 7 degrees that morning.. so cold!)

I wore a tree skirt as part of my attire 😉


Later that night, I had an ugly sweater birthday party at my apartment!

(you can’t tell but I’m wearing the same tree skirt I was wearing in the picture from the race!)


My mother in law took me & my husband out to lunch the next day, and a couple days later, a friend of mine came over to celebrate.  We had yummy food and wine, and got crafty!

We made Christmas trees from fabric scraps… This isn’t a very good picture but they actually turned out pretty cute!

What’s one thing that would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Nothing that really stands out… 2013 was pretty good to me!

How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2013?
Maxi dresses, scarves, and bubble necklaces. I discovered Be Inspired Boutique, and they had the CUTEST dresses over the summer! I have a ton of scarves already, but found out the jersey-knit infinity scarves that GroopDealz has periodically are the softest, most amazing scarves ever! And for the first half of 2013, I wore the bubble necklaces a lot… now I’m back on my scarf kick!

What kept you sane?
Hilarious ecards from someecards.com — Sometimes if I’m having a bad day, I’ll just browse them on Pinterest for a while and laugh. A lot. 🙂  And, trying to take things one day at a time! Sometimes, that’s all you can do!

Who was the best new person you met?
Our new SLP, speech paras, and our 2 new prek teachers!

Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2013?
If you want something, ask for it. It sounds simple, but I don’t like to ask for things, so this was actually tough for me. But, it’s been working! 😉

What are your new years resolutions for 2014?

That about sums it up!!  What are your New Years resolutions??

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Comments

  1. flamingonutjudy says

    January 4, 2014 at 2:01 am

    I also did not like the book Gone Girl, could not get into it, and did not finish. Did not like the characters, I guess.

    Reply
  2. Kari says

    January 4, 2014 at 2:24 am

    I am kind of a procedural crime drama show junkie (love Criminal Minds, NCIS, etc…) so I think I was just REALLY curious about the disappearance, and wanted to keep learning about that, but it kept flipping back to reminiscing about the beginnings of their relationship every other chapter. I think maybe I felt like that was a bit jarring. I know it was building the back story, but I didn't care for it much… I just wanted to know what happened to the wife!!

    Reply
  3. SLP Gone Wild says

    January 7, 2014 at 8:22 pm

    Kari, I think I adore you! I also think we would make good friends, cause I pretty much like all the things you like. Lol. Here's to a fabulous 2014!

    Reply
  4. Kari says

    January 9, 2014 at 2:43 am

    Ha ha you're sweet, Jenn! I adore you and your blog (you're hilarious and have great ideas!), so I'm sure we'd be good friends! Especially if you use totes magotes and quote that Sprint commercial on a regular basis. That pretty much seals the deal for me… ha! 🙂

    Reply

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We’ve been playing with allll the bug and garden We’ve been playing with allll the bug and garden activities this month up until this week when I shifted more to ice cream.. but I’m happy to share that my companion for “Up in the Garden, Down in the Dirt” is finally up on TpT!!

I love this book because it lends itself so well to SO many play extension activities with bugs, birds, flowers, and vegetable gardens.  We are lucky enough to have an outdoor garden where I work, so the classrooms have all been helping to take care of the plants— the best real life extension activity I could ask for!

The book is also chock-full of s-blends— and isn’t anything loaded with s-blends an SLP staple? 😂 I even made lists for you of all the s blend words (and other frequently occurring sound targets within the book) so you know what words you can target if you’re seeing kids in mixed groups. 

Swipe through to see all the fun hands-on activities you’ll get to work on themed vocabulary with your students— through labeling objects, verbs, object functions, and basic concepts.  Easily target multiple goals at once with activities that target different goal areas simultaneously.

Feeling like your brain is mush by this point in the year and just want someone to give you some other play activity ideas for your theme without having to search allll the places? Gotcha covered ✅  You’ll also get a list of some extra play activities with goal ideas to target within them!

Music creates some of the best connections— and it’s one of the best ways to start out your circle times/push in lessons… but you probably don’t have time to search and find the good garden and bug related songs on YouTube, right? 

Well, good news— You’re covered on that front, too, with a separate pdf just for links to different songs WITH Target goal ideas for each song, too! Download to your iPad and go!

I’ll leave this companion on sale for the next 24 hours (through Friday night) so you can still grab it at a discount for next year even if you’re done with this theme (your future self will thank you 😉)

Link in profile! ➡️ @rockchalkspeechtalk
If you’re looking to add some diversity to your If you’re looking to add some diversity to your bookshelf with May’s garden + bug themes, check out these 4 garden books featuring black or Hispanic characters!

1- “Plants Feed Me” - Short and simple text to explain where fruits and veggies come from and the different parts of the plants we eat.

Kids work together to take care of the garden (pick, water, dig, plant, etc.. great for verbs!) No main character, but features kids who are Black, white and Hispanic.

2- Lola Plants a Garden:  Lola wants to plant a flower garden. Her mom helps her through the planning steps. Lola reads books about gardens, chooses her favorite flowers, makes a list, buys seeds, then plants them. She waits and waits, then finally her plants grow! 

This book lends itself to activities that target sequencing, gardening verbs, and object functions. Lola makes a flower book while she waits for her real ones, so art supplies AND gardening tools are depicted in this book— perfect for object function targets!

3- Miguel’s Community Farm: Great book for comparing/contrasting!Miguel is looking for sunflowers, so the book starts off describing all the features of a sunflower.

On each page, Miguel sees a plant that shares a feature of a sunflower and wonders if he’s found them. However, the book then describes one way the plants are different, too (Sunflowers have yellow petals.  Artichokes have petals, too (similarity), but they’re green, not yellow (difference).

Miguel has 2 dads, who aren’t a prominent part of the book but are part of the 1st and last page illustrations.  The last page also depicts a garden party with Miguel’s friends, who are of varying ethnic backgrounds and physical abilities. 

4- Amara’s Farm: Same author/illustrator as Miguel’s Community Garden (featuring the same friends at the end!), and another compare/contrast book in the same format. 

Amara is searching for pumpkins on the farm, but this could fit into a Spring garden theme since it compares/contrasts produce. There’s also a lot of bugs in the illustrations, making it easy to fit into a bug and garden combo theme, too!

Did you find any new books to check out? If you did, share w/ another SLP/teacher friend!
You asked, so here it is! A post about allllll the You asked, so here it is! A post about allllll the things we were able to work on with this St Patrick’s Day “party” we did last week! ☘️💚 

Swipe through ➡️ to see it broken down into separate parts! It can cover so many areas from speech sounds/ syllable shapes, play imitation, to WH questions, following directions, and categorizing!

Have a friend that would love this? Be sure to share this post and send it their way!
Who else loves interactive books?! These are some Who else loves interactive books?! These are some of my favorite things to make because they’re SO versatile for use across your caseload! You can use this one for…

➡️simple inferences
➡️labeling animal vocabulary 
➡️who questions
➡️what questions
➡️core vocab like “turn” “on” “not” “look” “see” “play” and “eat.” ➡️imitating animal sounds (great for CV and CVCV syllables) 
➡️yes/no questions

I’ve also been pairing “Let’s…” and “It’s…” phrases with my kids who are gestalt language processors working on mitigation (Let’s turn the page! Let’s see who it is, It’s a pig/cow/chicken etc…)

Swipe through to see some sample pages and to hear what other people are saying about this book!
TIP OF THE DAY: Print your science experiment visu TIP OF THE DAY: Print your science experiment visuals or cheat sheets 2 to a page to have a small, handy version in front of you to reference for yourself without taking up extra space! 

Speaking of space… Since we all know SLP workspaces can come at a premium in a school… what’s the worst place you’ve had to do therapy?

I haven’t had any seriously awful ones, but one that comes to mind was probably in the preschool/kindergarten pod, at a table just behind a noisy book fair setup.  That was the day one of my kids loudly asked me “Why you got a stick?” But she did d/st blends so it did NOT sound like “stick” and I was mortified and thought “Welp this is how I lose my job” 😂🤣 

Tell me yours below! ⬇️
Tell me with an emoji! Do you plan… 🌼 Just b Tell me with an emoji! Do you plan…

🌼 Just before a session

1️⃣ 1-2 weeks at a time

🦋 Have a weekly theme but wing it from there

😅 lol what’s planning

I always find the wide range of differences between all of us so interesting!
Story props are one of the best ways to keep kids Story props are one of the best ways to keep kids engaged during book reading- and reenacting a story with props is one of the strongest predictors of story comprehension!

Make sure you grab these free story visuals from my TPT store for Little Blue Truck’s Valentine for your therapy this week, and pair them with your farm toys! We ❤️ Little Blue Truck at home, too!

You can find these visuals at the link in my profile or let me know if you want me to DM you a direct link!
10 on the Sled has been my lifeline for planning t 10 on the Sled has been my lifeline for planning therapy since coming back from Christmas break, when every day I never know which kids will be out, which coworkers will be out, or who’s caseload I’ll be covering when I have said cancelations!

It’s been a minute since I’ve uploaded anything to TPT, and I’m super stoked about getting this 10 on the sled unit out to you!

When I was in the schools, it was always a challenge to find enough time to push in to the preschool rooms— there was always centers and literacy/language small group time, but when they’re only there for 3 hours (with recess in there, too) and there’s 30 kids to see during those 3 hours.. those two times are definitely not enough!

And, even though you’re adaptable and can make just about anything be a language activity.. sometimes it’s nice to come in with a plan vs crossing your fingers that whatever is happening during that time is relevant to you.  But, you also want to be respectful of the teacher’s focus during certain times of their day, too!

Juggling all the things.

So, when I create materials for you, I create things you can use to push in during even more times of the day to give you even more windows of opportunity.

▶️Story props to use with the class if you’re pushing in during whole group

▶️ Size concept play dough creation mats that you could use if you’re going in during a math center time.  Compare sizes.  Count how many long and short, big and small pieces you need.

▶️Fine motor-based activities like tracing lines, creating with popsicle sticks, and play dough pages so that maybe you can be a station during sign-in in the morning, too, after they work on their name with the teacher or OT!

The materials are so adaptable, though, that you can push in or pull out, use individually or in a small group, and lots of the pages can be used to target multiple goals at once.  Using real objects with the activities helps keep it play-based, too, to keep your little ones engaged!

So, whatcha think? Ready to check it out? Head over to the link in my profile or let me know if you want me to DM you the link!

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